Thereafter we visited restaurant after restaurant,--high, low, smart, dull,-and I can say truly that the strange impression which this world made on me lingers even now. Obviously, when we arrived at Fysher’s at twelve o’clock, the fun was just getting under way. Some of these places, like this Bar Fysher, were no larger than a fair-sized room in an apartment, but crowded with a gay and festive throng--Americans, South Americans, English and others. One of the tricks in Paris to make a restaurant successful is to keep it small so that it has an air of overflow and activity. Here at Fysher’s Bar, after allowing room for the red-jacketed orchestra, the piano and the waiters, there was scarcely space for the forty or fifty guests who were present. Champagne was twenty francs the bottle and champagne was all they served. It was necessary here, as at all the restaurants, to contribute to the support of the musicians; and if a strange young woman should sit at your table for a moment and share either the wine or the fruit which would be quickly offered, you would have to pay for that. Peaches were three francs each, and grapes five francs the bunch. It was plain that all these things were offered in order that the house might thrive and prosper. It was so at each and all of them. CHAPTER XXIV “THE POISON FLOWER” It was after this night that Barfleur took his departure for London for two weeks, where business affairs were calling him during which time I was to make myself as idle and gay as I might alone or with the individuals to whom he had introduced me or to whom I had introductions direct. There was so much that I wished to see and that he did not care to see over again with me, having seen it all before--the Musée de Cluny, for instance, the Louvre, the Luxembourg and so on. The next afternoon after a more or less rambling day I saw him off for London and then I plunged into this treasure world alone.